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Melissa Mathison, who famously wrote E.T., has written the latest draft based on the beloved children’s tale, and has been aboard since DreamWorks grabbed the rights back in 2011. Since then the classic story has been stomping through development hell, landing in the laps of directors such as John Madden and Chris Columbus.

Now, however, Spielberg has taken a serious shine to the tale of young Sophie, who meets the world’s only friendly giant. He makes it his mission to collect good dreams and gift them to children while destroying nightmares and keeping his nasty fellow gigantic brethren from eating “human beans”.

While the 1982 book was famously adapted by ITV in 1989, it’ll be fun to see what one of the big contributors to our latest issue makes of the story with today’s filmmaking techniques. According to the Reporter’s story, the director is set to start work next year for a 2016 release, leaving him space to make something smaller before that.